Capsule of Absurdity No. 2

Many of my readers and fans have asked me to write something concerning Alitalia and its recent crisis. So here's the second installment of 'capsules of absurdity', the successful series started here.

As most Italian public services, the circumstances of Alitalia are full of absurd events and developments, not only in the relation with the customer but in the very essence of its life as a company. I won't enter into the details of the corruption and bankruptcy in Alitalia nor describe the recent tricks to keep it alive; they're so absurd that I would bore you unnecessarily. Instead, here I shall describe some events related to my recent trip Bologna - Warsaw with Alitalia.

I had never flown with Alitalia. I had heard that the service was terrible, but the same I had heard of other companies, such as Lufthansa. (It is worth pointing out that I don't travel a lot, and that I mainly use AirFrance. I have used BA and Iberia.) So, back at the end of June, flying with Alitalia for the first time didn't seem like a stupid thing. Of course I had heard that it had problems, but (i) the whole sector was/is in trouble because of oil prices, (ii) I was somehow confident in Silvio B's promises of an "Italian Alitalia" (Alitalia owned by Italian shareholders), and (iii) I had heard that they had money to work normally till December this year. Based on all the above, and in the fact that I found the cheapest fare (250 Euro), I bought my ticket to Warsaw with Alitalia, doing Bologna-Rome-Warsaw.

Problems began the weekend before my trip. The newspapers announced that the group of entrepreneurs ready to save Alitalia and the unions weren't able to reach an agreement. As a consequence, the existence of the company was in serious risk. Many rumors indicated that the situation was really critic, as the company had problems ensuring provisions of fuel.

Immediately, I entered into panic mode and looked for my ticket's rules for cancellation. They weren't with the things I had been given, and I forgot to ask them explicitly. I went to the travel agency, where I was informed that in case I wanted to cancel my ticket I would only receive 100 Euros back and that a different ticket with another company would cost more than 400 Euro. They also critizied me for following the "alarmism of media", claiming that Alitalia had been in crisis for 3 years and that nothing had happened. Moreover, the owner of the agency, who was overhearing my case, quickly pointed out that she had herself Alitalia tickets for her vacation and that she wouldn't cancel them for some "silly rumors."

The following week I spent/wasted a significant amount of time following the developments in media, quickly discovering that getting informed in this country is simply impossible. I decided not to change the ticket, essentially because the price difference was huge. My hope was that the final collapse of Alitalia would occur just after my flights.

Real panic returned to me the afternoon before my flight, scheduled to depart at 11am from Bologna. I was trying to print a copy of my online itinerary and then I got the following message:

We can't display your itinerary, as your flights have changed. Please consult your travel agency.

I ran to the agency to find out what was going out. The answer was really absurd. I was told:

Your flight has been canceled for logistic reasons. There's an earlier flight at 9am, would you like to take it?

Of course I took the earlier flight. Even if the whole idea of having a flight canceled without getting any notification is outrageous, the fact that the only possibility for me was an earlier flight was simply beyond any limit of absurdity. What if I don't check the online thing and arrive to the airport to take the 11am flight? There were no other flights to Rome so that I could connect to Warsaw, and I would have wasted a lot of energy, time and mental sanity in the process.

The reservation was corrected and I printed the online itinerary. The night before I couldn't sleep and decided to check again the itinerary. I got the same error I got in the afternoon. Complete panic. Then I decided to contact Alitalia's call center. My conversation with the Alitalia operator (AZ) was amusing:

(Me): I would like to confirm my flights for tomorrow, please.
(AZ): All flights are confirmed.

(Me): Wait a second, I haven't given you my flight information...
(AZ): Mmm, OK. What's your last name?

After giving my information, they confirmed all the data of the corrected booking and I felt relieved. I still want to think that the "all flights are confirmed" greeting was due to the fact that operators are allowed to feel tired every once in a while. Since stupidity has universally prevailed in history, I am afraid it's not difficult to imagine the following hypothetical conversation, between a stupid customer (SC) and the same call center:

(SC): Hello, I would like to confirm my flights for tomorrow, please.
(AZ): All flights are confirmed.

(SC): Oh, good to hear, thank you very much.
(AZ): You're welcome. Thanks for choosing Alitalia.

Luckily, the two flights to Warsaw were OK. You could tell how all the employees were stressed with the whole situation. It must have been really hard for them, the ones who actually work, to answer the challenge while the government and the union leaders played their stupid political games. The situation was kind of solved last Thursday, so I didn't worry about the returning flights. Those were also OK. In fact, they corresponded to the infamous motto given to Alitalia: "Always Late In Take-off Always Late In Arrival." But that didn't matter: I managed to go and return from Warsaw without significant problems (the huge delays that I had to suffer were no surprise).